


Surveillance 101

by for_t2



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Chocolate, Exhaustion, F/F, Food, Friendship, Ghosts, Med Student Sameen Shaw, Mystery, Studying, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: If some people said the residence was haunted, Shaw didn't pay any attention. Until the night a chocolate bar slipped under her door in the middle of an exam-fueled study binge
Relationships: Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	Surveillance 101

The artificial glow of the screen felt like it was burrowing into Shaw’s brain. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to this laptop, borrowed in haste from the nerdiest nerd she knew on campus (one Harold Finch) after hers suffered an unfortunate incident involving a hockey puck and a kinky sleepover, or maybe it was just because it was four in the morning and she hadn’t slept in a couple days.

Probably the former.

Shaw had her coffee, she had her notes, and, most of all, she had a big exam coming up at the end of the week. A big exam that she was absolutely determined to pass after that one asshole T.A. said she was too rude to ever become a doctor (Shaw preferred the term “assertive” or “self-confident”, and she absolutely didn’t want to talk about any self-diagnoses that were none of the T.A.’s business). Shaw wasn’t cocky, per se, but she knew she could score near the top of class on a normal exam day, so logically, she should be able to score top of the class on this exam day.

If she studied hard enough.

So she studied. Studied when she was exercising. When she was playing hockey. When she was in shower, on the bus, when she was hanging with Reese and Lionel, when she was sleeping, even when she was eating. Even then!

But somehow, the more she studied, the closer the exam got, and the more she felt she had to study. So the more she studied. And the more she felt she had to study. And the more she studied. And-- 

She jumped the moment a small knock broke through her door.

Spun off her chair.

Grabbed her hockey stick and… 

Her door was still as closed as it always had been. And nobody was knocking. Nobody.

“Fuck me,” Shaw muttered as she slumped back down on her chair. She wasn’t the paranoid type, and she definitely wasn’t the jumpy type, but she really didn’t like getting when she was studying. Especially when she was still getting the question on page… “The fuck?”

Shaw picked herself off her chair. Walked over to the door, bent over, and picked up a chocolate bar. A chocolate bar. At four in the morning. Under her door.

At four in the morning.

She pushed through the door, stick first, and glanced both ways down the residence corridor. Dark, silent, and completely empty.

“Huh.” She turned the chocolate over in her hands. It was her favourite. She cautiously unwrapped it. Took a bit of it. “Huh.” It was pretty fucking good.

And when she retreated back into her room, having given up on spying anyone on her, she wondered if maybe Lionel was right about the residence being haunted. And at least it seemed like a friendly ghost.

*

Shaw blinked as the sunlight reached through her blinds and punched her in the face.

“Ugh,” she groaned. She must’ve fallen asleep by accident at some point around five. Sometimes her body betrayed her that way. But she was back awake now, and she still had…

Her clock read ten in the morning.

As in a decadent five hours of sleep. As in, thirty minutes late for her team’s morning practice.

“Fuck!”

She sprung away from her desk, swapped shirts with one hand, reached for her gym bag with the each and headed right for the-- 

Squish.

Squish as in somehow a toasted breakfast bagel, with meat and sauce and her favourite mustard, had appeared just in front of door. It was still warm. And she had stepped right in it.

“Fuck.”

As she pulled her foot away, she noticed something else. A slip of paper underneath the bagel. What looked like a… coupon. A voucher. For her favourite lunch spot. For 50% off. On steak meals.

Maybe it was a very friendly ghost.

* 

One of the great things about catching lunch with Reese is that he tended not to ask a lot of questions. Or try to make small talk. Or generally do anything than try to eat without staining his omnipresent suit (except, of course, when Finch or Carter or Zoe was there – or worse, all three at once).

But apparently not today.

“You don’t think it’s suspicious?”

“It’s free food,” Shaw shrugged, mouth full to the brim with juicy delicious steak. “Free food!”

“But you don’t know who put it there.” If Reese didn’t hurry up and start eating his steak, Shaw might just have to pinch a little.

“Fusco says the residence is haunted.”

“You believe Fusco now?”

“Sure.” Shaw shrugged. Fusco was a good guy. Tougher than he looked, loyal, reliable, everything Shaw liked in a friend, really. He was a very good guy. “I mean, it’s free food. Who cares?”

Reese examined her deeply for a few seconds before munching down on one of his fries. “Careful Shaw.” A lot of people dismissed him as one of the jocks, but Shaw knew he was smarter than that. More observant at the very least. And just sometimes he liked to play James Bond. “You never know when these things come back and bite you.”

*

Shaw stretched in satisfaction when she wandered back into her room, dropping her bag with a thunk onto her bed. There was nothing quite like a good run, a good lunch and…

Why was her laptop sitting on her chair? Why did it have a… a… she didn’t want to admit, but a bow tied around it?

As she creeped warily towards it, she realised it also had a purple post note plastered on top of it. A note that read: “All fixed” with what looked like a terrible attempt at a winking emoji.

“What the fuck?”

*

“Come on, Harold.” Shaw was not going to beg. “Come on.” She absolutely was not. “Finch.” Absolutely not. “Please?”

“Ms. Shaw, computers are not toys.”

“My safety is at risk, Finch.”

Finch eyed Shaw’s copious amount of muscles with no small bit of apprehension. “I’m not sure that’s the case.”

Shaw wasn’t getting anywhere with this. “It’s for science.” So, she tried her next approach. “Fusco thinks the residence is haunted, and I want to test that hypothesis.”

“Hmm.” She could tell Finch was starting to consider it. “Science is a valuable pursuit.” She had him. She… “But I doubt Mr. Fusco will be easily disabused of his… more fanciful notions.” 

“Come on.” Shaw banged her head against the table. What was the point of being friends with the best student in the department of computer science if you couldn’t get him to set up someone slightly illicit surveillance equipment around your dorm? “Please? I’ll kick Reese until he asks you out?”

“Ms. Shaw—”

“It’s a challenge!” Shaw interrupted him with yet another approach. “Think of it as an… extracurricular project.” This time, she was definitely winning him over. “People could be in danger. Think of the first-years, Finch.”

*

The first thing Shaw did when she stirred from her desk at some godforsaken hour in the morning was smirk. Even she was more exhausted than she cared to admit, even if the sun was deciding to rise at increasingly and absurdly early hours, she was getting to get her answers.

Well, at least, some answers. She still needed to study.

And just like clockwork, another chocolate bar found itself on her floor.

“Got you now.” She smirked again as she booted her laptop out of its sleep. As she pulled up the streams from Finch’s fancy spy system. The ghost was… “No way.”

The streams were empty.

Well, not entirely empty, more like hacked – with the words #root #root #root #root scrolling down in Matrix green all across her screen.

* 

She had tried fancy, now it was time to try blunt.

“Shut up, Reese.”

“But—”

“Shh!” Shaw shushed Reese as he bumped up to her in the middle of the dark hallway. She knew he didn’t want to be awake and creeping around her residence in the middle of the night (probably), but that was his problem. She had a ghost to catch. And he owed her a favour.

“But I think I saw something.”

“What?” Shaw spun her hockey stick in the direction Reese was pointing. “Where?”

“Down there.” The two of them stared into the darkness for a few seconds. Nothing moved. “I think.”

“Check it out.” The more their search was turning up empty, the harder she pushed. “Go!”

She rolled her eyes at his grumbling, but he creeped off in that direction anyways. Which meant that Shaw just need to go a little further down before-- 

*

Shaw didn’t remember going to bed. And she distinctly would’ve remembered bringing back a very attractive brunette with a leather jacket and a… really nerdy t-shirt with her.

“I’m not a ghost, you know.”

And she absolutely would’ve remembered if they gotten up to anything that involved zip tying Shaw’s wrists to her bed.

“I had to tase you. Sorry.” The stranger didn’t look sorry at all. More amused that anything. “But you were getting too close.”

“Too close to what?”

The stranger gave her a slightly maniacal and slightly patronising smile. “Isn’t that the question, Sameen?” And Shaw absolutely, absolutely would’ve remembered if she had told the stranger her first name. “There are things happening on this campus that are beyond what you can imagine.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

The stranger chuckled. “Depends what side you’re on.”

“And what side are you?”

The stranger pulled out a chocolate bar (Shaw’s favourite) out of her jacket. “I guess I’m on yours, now.”

Shaw sent her best deadpan glare at her, as she slowly tried to figure her way out of the almost expertly placed zip ties. “Has anyone ever told you this is really creepy?”

“Don’t worry, Sameen.” The stranger unwrapped the bar. Stuffed it into Shaw’s poor defenceless mouth. “I spy on everyone.”

*

The second Reese found her still tied to her bed, with an empty chocolate wrapped at her feet, he gave her a look that she didn’t care to explain. Fortunately, he kept the teasing to a minimum before using his knife to cut her free.

And the second she was free, well, she went right after the stranger. Right back to where she had been tased.

It only took her a few minutes before she found it. A storage closet tucked away in a corner of the basement nobody would ever notice, empty except for a few stray wires and a single purple post-it note.

“Call me Root (and call me).”

It had a phone number.

And a terribly drawn wink.


End file.
